At a tender age Louis-Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
(1769-1834) was sent to the military school at Brienne in Champagne, where he met an intense lad with
whom he shared his natal year, one Napoleone Buonaparte.By Bourrienne’s account, the two became fast
friends.But, perhaps disillusioned with
the demands of a military life, in 1787 Bourrienne left the school and went to Germany, where he studied law and diplomacy at Vienna and Leipzig.After the French Revolution broke out, he
returned to France,
and shortly encountered Buonaparte, by then an artillery officer.The two appear to have hit it off again,
sharing quarters and witnessing some the great events of the Revolution,
including the slaughter of the Swiss Guard on August 20, 1792.Soon afterwards, Bourrienne secured a diplomatic post in Germany.Returning to France in 1795, Bourrienne once
more looked up Buonaparte, who had risen to deputy commander of the Army of the
Interior.In early 1797, shortly after Buonaparte’s
series of victories in Italy,
the general summoned Bourrienne to serve as his private secretary and advisor on
diplomatic and political matters.This
relationship continued for several years, and Bourrienne accompanied Buonaparte
on the Egyptian Expedition, had some role in the coup that overthrew the Directoire,
and served in various administrative capacities during the Consulate.Meanwhile, Bourrienne seems to have developed
a talent for turning an illegal sou now and again.

In the autumn of 1802, First Consul Bonaparte – for thus he
now chose to spell his name – discovered Bourrienne’s shady financial dealings
and dismissed him.A few years later the-by-then
Emperor Napoleon decided to give Bourrienne another chance, and sent him to Hamburg, where he was
supposed to oversee enforcement of the Continental System, a kind of “reverse
blockade” intended to cut off all commerce with Britain.Rather than perform his duties, Bourrienne
took advantage of his office to amass considerable wealth.The extent to which Napoleon was aware of
this is unclear, but early in 1807 he did instruct Bourrienne to secure a large
supply of military overcoats.Bourrienne
procured these in England,
thereby violating not only the Continental System, but also the British
blockade of France!Bourrienne’s profitable arrangements came
apart toward the end of 1810, when Napoleon fired him.Over the next few years he lived in seclusion
in France.

After Napoleon’s first abdication, in 1814, Bourrienne
became an enthusiastic supporter of the Royalist cause, and during the Hundred
Days in 1815 actually helped escort Louis XVIII. to exile in Ghent.

Despite his ability to amass wealth, in later life, by which
time opportunities for graft had decreased precipitously, Bourrienne found
himself desperately short of cash.To
raise some money, he arranged to have C. M. de Villemarest ghost-write his
"memoirs."In fact, aside from
some notes and such that Bourrienne supplied, the work seems largely to have
been written by Villemarest.Villemarest
produced an interesting compilation of some factual material mixed with a lot
of fiction.Originally published in ten
volumes at Paris
between 1829 and 1831, the work has seen several editions since, including
translations into English and other languages.

Bourriene’s Memoirs include some useful
material.But much of what is contained
therein is pure fabrication, often intended to either boost Bourrienne’s status
or reduce Napoleon’s.Indeed,
Bonapartophiles were quick to respond with works that rebutted Bourrienne, such
as Bourrienne et ses erreurs volontaires ou observations sur ses
"Mémoires", a compilation
of commentary and essays by a flock of Napoleonic barons and counts, including
the Count de Survilliers, actually Joseph Bonaparte, the
Emperor’s elder brother and sometime“King of Spain” (Leipzig &
Paris, 1830), and Napoleon et ses détracteurs by Prince Napoleon (Paris,
1887).

While the Bonapartophiles had an axe to grind, in fact they were
right about Bourrienne’s Memoirs, which
are full of errors and fabrications.Nevertheless, since its appearance, the Anti-Bonapartists have managed to
draw upon the often highly unreliable Memoirs for a great deal of ammunition..

Everyone’s heard of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and the
Seven Weeks’ War (1866), but few have heard of the Seven Days’ War of
1871.Actually, it wasn’t a war at all,
but a major exercise, the first in which the British Army pitted two opposing forces
maneuvering against each other over real terrain.

Although the Prussians had been doing it for years, it
wasn’t easy getting the British Army to conduct real maneuvers.But in 1870, Gen. Sir James Hope Grant, a
seasoned veteran of Sikh War, the Indian Mutiny, and the Anglo-French campaign
in China in 1860, became
commander of the British Army’s main training grounds at Aldershot.Having witnessed Prussian maneuvers, he
thought they were a very good idea and pushed hard to adopt the practice.

Sometimes termed the “Hampshire Campaign,” the maneuvers
involved over 40,000 troops, who were observed by a host of notables, not only
from Britain
but also from a number of other countries.

The exercises fell into four phases.

1.Field Maneuvers, September 8-12.General exercises and evolutions.

2.“The Seven Days’ War”, September 13-19.The maneuvers began when an “invasion force”
of 24,000 commanded by a general Staveley and a general Carey, “landed” on the
south coast of Hampshire and advanced towards London.Defending the capital was an army of about 16,000 troops under Sir James
himself.For two days the armies
maneuvered and probed for each other.On
the 16th they began to make contact and a series of “battles” began
near Aldershot, the British Army’s traditional
maneuvering ground.On the 19th
Sir James was declared the victor.

3.Battle of Fox’s Hill, September 21.The forces, having been reorganized into two
different formats, commanded respectively by Staveley and Carey, tangled in a
sham fight, with the latter declared the victory.

A few weeks later there was a final installment, the “Battle
of Chatham”, on October 24, a sham fight that resulted in the storming of the
town.

These exercises were part of a series of modernizing
measures – the “Cardwell Reforms” – that were just then being implemented in
the British Army.On November 1, 1871,
purchase was abolished, in February of 1872 the British Isles were divided into
65 brigade districts, the following autumn there was a 25 day maneuver in
Wiltshire, a new tactical manual was introduced that November, in February of
1873 a chief of staff was instituted for the Army, and a few weeks later the
Military Intelligence Department was established.

So even if it isn’t much remembered today, the “Seven Days’
War” played a critical role in the campaign to modernize the British Army.